


Glass

by CrumblingAsh



Series: Fragile Things [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Flash Fic, Gen, M/M, Not Iron Man 3 Compliant, Post-Avengers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, quasi-suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 20:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrumblingAsh/pseuds/CrumblingAsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pepper's gone. Tony stands at the shattered window. What would it be like to jump, instead of being thrown? What would it be like to fall, without knowing you'd be caught?</p>
<p>And then Steve calls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glass

* * *

 

He’s the first up here since everything ended.

 

Bruce is downstairs, somewhere, sleeping. Safe, he promised Bruce he’d be safe. Pepper’s gone. There’s not going to be anyone else.

 

The hole is still perfectly placed in the crumbled floor.

 

His shoes tremble as thick, rubbled pieces of cement and piercing shards of glass crush beneath them, remnants of the obliterated window he walks towards.

 

“Sir…” JARVIS sounds uncertain, instead of disapproving. Tony smirks on reflex, mindful of JARVIS’ eyes, but says nothing as he comes to rest against the shattered windowsill. Below, as oblivious to his presence as that day, Manhattan breathes and lives and goes on, waiting or not waiting, depending on what he wants.

 

What, he wonders, would it be like to jump, instead of being thrown? To fall without knowing he would be caught?

 

What would it be to finally drown, to be held under the water just a little longer, and not be dragged up only to repeat the process yet again? To lose it in space, to burn up in the aftermath of nuclear explosion, to freeze in the hold of _nothing,_ with no one around to hear the last thing you had to say?

 

Inconsequential. He kicks a bit of rubble off the edge, curious and rude, and watches it fall. What would it be like to fall? Would Pepper, somewhere in the air, not quite far gone yet, be able to see this time? Would he land on someone? He doesn’t want to land on someone.

 

“Excuse me, sir.” JARVIS again.

 

“Not now, buddy,” he dismisses, keeps looking down at the city. The sidewalks were always busy; wasn’t America supposed to be fat and lazy?

 

“My apologies, sir, but Captain Rogers is on the line. He seems … distressed, sir.”

 

“What?” The sidewalks are gone; he’s facing the room again, the window to his back. “Rogers?”

 

“Stark.” Roger’s voice bounces off the walls like surround sound. He sounds, Tony can recognize, wrecked. “… Tony.”

 

Tony recognizes it because he’s called Rhodey before, just like this. Quiet, reluctant, and desperate for a reason to hang up.

 

He isn’t terribly fond of Steve Rogers. Captain America, sure, he’s great, but Steve Rogers is everything he’s ever resented and nothing like what his father said.

 

“… Got your room all ready for ya, Cap.” He says the words without thinking about them – hell, they say themselves, the bastards, he’s maybe a little drunk and he totally is not waiting for some sort of affirmative response, here, because he doesn’t actually want it to happen. He’s drunk.

 

There’s silence; a breeze pushes in through the window, kicking up busted dust and pushing it into his lungs. And then, confused and wary, “I… okay.”

 

A little more than a little drunk. He pushes. “Yeah?”

 

A heavy, bone-rattling sigh, tired and submissive. “Yeah.”

 

“Great.” He swallows and doesn’t think. “Tonight then? Awesome. The door will be open and the light will be on. Or whatever they used to say. Stay off the sidewalks. J?”

 

“Sidewalks? What-”

 

JARVIS cuts the call before Rogers can finish, and Tony is thrown back into the silence of the room, the rush of wind through the broken window, the noise of the streets below. He pauses for just a second, casts a glance towards it, remembers flying, remembers falling, drowning, dying.

 

“If I may, sir, perhaps you should take this time to actually prepare Captain Rogers’ room,” his AI intones dryly, but not without purpose.

 

Right. Room. Cap gets a room, because Tony said he had a room. He’s not a damn liar, if anything. There’s no time for a team. He’ll wake up Bruce, get his help. That’ll be fun.

 

The window’s not going anywhere.


End file.
